This innovative and pioneering new book sets out to establish the links between crime reduction and the law: to analyze how the law contributes to a decrease in crime. Providing a detailed and sustained analysis, Crime Reduction and the Law offers a thorough guide to many of the most contemporary and pressing concerns in the field of crime reduction. It offers a consideration of the social policy, politics and legislation that surround and drive the crime reduction agenda. In particular, and uniquely, this book provides a detailed and sustained analysis of how specific legislation and the setting of performance targets aids and/or undermines attempts at crime reduction. This includes analyzing the creation of ‘safe environments’ through Town and Country Planning legislation, the role of local authorities in crime reduction initiatives and the nature of drug policy, paedophilia legislation and programs to control mental disorder crime. Bringing together the work of internationally renowned experts in this field, this book should prove highly useful to students of criminology and sociology, as well as crime prevention and reduction practitioners, police officers and community safety partnership professionals.